


To lay your heart and head upon

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Inquisitor Barriss, Past Relationship(s), Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Ahsoka is on a mission when she runs into an old friend.





	To lay your heart and head upon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



Dying, or as good as dying, put paid to all debts. Ahsoka still believed in the Rebellion and she would still aid their cause to her last breath, but since her escape from Malachor, she couldn't deny that she felt a different pull. The Alliance to Restore the Republic scattered and hid across a dozen worlds, piling together as one great force when they could, then vanishing into smaller teams again as the Empire chased them. Ahsoka could no more find a Rebel cell than the Imperials could, and rather than wasting her efforts trying, she spent herself in furthering their message: Resistance. Freedom. Hope.

She'd gone from world to world, a shadow and a rumor. Her death had been announced and duly celebrated by the Empire, and she'd been forgotten. Anonymity was easier when the people who'd hunted you thought you were dead, but she knew those who met her now would not forget her face even if she never offered her name.

Eventually, the truth would come out that she lived. Vader would know.

As she always did when she remembered their final encounter, Ahsoka shook her head and cast away the sorrow. She still worked on making peace with her understanding that the kind, quirky, good man who'd been Anakin Skywalker had died, and her acceptance that it was not her destiny to strike down the soulless beast still desecrating his body. She would honor the memory of who her master was, who all her friends once were, by continuing this work

Today she was on Scipio. The Muuns were full of pride and happy to earn their profits from the Empire, just as they had been happy to earn from the Republic and the Separatists twenty years ago. Some were young, though, and looked out onto the galaxy with open eyes.

Tal was her newest contact, and she held great hopes for him. "You know this is wrong."

"I know," he replied. "Tell me how to make it right."

As she had in her early days, Ahsoka planted seeds. She gave Tal the words to say to his mother and father, who were powerful in the Banking Clan. She coached him on things to tell them in conversations over weeks and months to come. Little drops could wear down a mountain. All Ahsoka needed was a hole for the Rebellion to burrow into in its need.

They parted, and Ahsoka headed along the streets back towards her ship when she felt a familiar presence. Her first fear was that it was Vader, that he'd found her already, but his aura had been cold as space. This feeling was sharp, like knives or the teeth of a spikeshark, and it smoldered.

Ahsoka stepped into an alley between two tall buildings, then turned with her hands on her lightsabers but not yet drawing them.

The Inquisitor stepped out of the shadow, her own blade lit red.

"I knew you weren't dead," she said. Her voice came through a modulator and still Ahsoka would know it anywhere.

"For your sake, I'd hoped you were, Barriss."

She'd considered the fates of all her friends. When she'd last seen this woman, she'd been in a cell, sentenced to life imprisonment rather than execution. A mercy, the Council had said, agreeing with the court's decision. Barriss Offee was mad. Ahsoka had fought with her own emotions, relief in her pardon overshadowed by grief, and the flitting memories of stolen kisses with someone who snarled at her as Ahsoka said her final farewell at the prison. After the great betrayal and the deaths of all the Jedi, Ahsoka had feared for Barriss, wondering if she'd been killed with a single shot or if their enemies had taken advantage of their captive, tormenting her before allowing her to die.

The woman who stood before her wore the garb and the manner of an Inquisitor, sworn to hunt down and destroy the last remnants of the Jedi. Barriss hadn't hated the Jedi, but instead hated the fractured image of the Order she saw inside her head, fallen from their own ideals. Barriss Offee would not do this, which meant that, like Anakin, Barriss was dead.

"I'm so sorry," Ahsoka said. She relaxed her hands away from her lightsaber handles, letting them fall to her sides. "I'm sorry for what they did to you."

The modulator made a sound like a choke. "You don't get to be sorry for me."

"How did you find me?"

"Luck. I was here on other business, and I sensed you." Even changed, there was a hint inside her voice of the sly humor Ahsoka remembered. With Vader, there had been no trace left. A stab of pain hit her heart again. "Do you intend to come quietly?"

"To what end? Your Empire thinks I'm dead. If I strike you down now, they'll keep thinking I'm dead." But she knew she couldn't do it. Something inside remained of the girl she'd loved. She cast her mind out, looking for options.

Barriss took a step towards her. "I've been training constantly since we last met. You've been on the run for years, and there are no Jedi left alive to teach you more. Do you think you could win?"

"That depends on your point of view." One of their early lessons in combat had been to identify their victory condition and work towards that goal. All else was irrelevant. Ahsoka's victory condition should be her survival, but as she began to move in step around Barriss, hands creeping towards her lightsabers again, she knew survival was secondary, almost unneccessary.

"What did they do to you?" she asked Barriss. "Did they hurt you? Or did they just fill your ears with enough propaganda that you started to believe them?" She felt a twinge at the word 'hurt,' and she knew. "I'm sorry," she said again. "Show me your face."

"No."

"Please. Let me see you again."

Without letting down her guard, Barriss removed the mask covering her face. She'd added more tattoos, which helped disguise the scars. In her own voice she said, "Happy?"

"Always."

Barriss scoffed. "You were always a terrible liar." It was her voice, through and through. Her eyes were clear, not lost in the hell-gaze of a Sith. Ahsoka read years of pain on her face and in the lines of her body. For everything she'd done, more had been done to her, and instead of anger, or fear, or even regret, Ahsoka only felt a sorrowful love.

She took her lightsabers into her hands. Barriss instantly went on guard.

Ahsoka dropped both handles to the ground between them. "I won't fight you."

"That makes this easier."

Ahsoka stood as Barriss approached, the red of her blade casting eerie shadows in this dim alley and crackling amid the low sounds from the street nearby. Ahsoka kept her eyes locked on Barriss's.

"I could take you back with me alive. They'll want you for questioning about your Rebel friends."

"Yes."

"Or I could strike you down here and bring back your corpse as a gift to Lord Vader."

"You could."

Barriss didn't move. Ahsoka refused to look away.

Ahsoka said, "You have to decide what you intend to do. But you should know that no matter what you do to me, I still love you, and I will continue to love you. I don't blame you. I'm so sorry for what happened to you."

"Stop saying that!" Without the modulator, without the distance, the tremors in her voice shook them both.

Ahsoka reached out her hand and placed it against Barriss's sword arm, with care as one would pat a frightened animal. "I can stop them from hurting you or anyone else ever again. We can. Come away with me."

Barriss jerked back as if burned. She tilted her lightsaber at Ahsoka's neck. "You murdered the last Inquisitors who came after you. Do you think you can lull me into complacency before you kill me, too?"

"Maul murdered them. I won't kill you, Barriss. I won't hurt you. I'll swear on anything you like."

Barriss turned away from her. "You're lying. The Jedi are liars and traitors." She held her head like she was in pain. Ahsoka wondered how much pain she'd endured, and her heart ached.

"I'm no Jedi," she said. She stretched her arms around Barriss's shoulders, feeling the shock and the initial fear shudder through her. She expected a blow, expected a fight. She didn't pull away. Gradually, like ice thawing under a warm palm, Barriss melted into her embrace. She shuddered again, and Ahsoka knew she was weeping.

"Everything hurts." There was nothing of the Inquisitor left in her voice now, only the lost girl Ahsoka had known and loved, and the woman she loved now.

"I know."

"Where can we go?"

From over her shoulder and up between the buildings around them, past the light pollution from the city, Ahsoka could make out pinpricks of stars. She would teach Barriss to resist her programming. She would offer her freedom from her past. But first, she would restore her hope.

"Anywhere you want."


End file.
